


a very platonic relationship

by janie_tangerine



Series: jbweek 2019 [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brienne is the Best, Bronn is the MVP, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Fluff without Plot, Gen, Idiots in Love, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week 2019, Matchmaker Tyrion Lannister, Mutual Pining, Philosophy, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tyrion Lannister Ships It, he's also Done With The Both Of THem, in which i finally show all my hatred for the world platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 10:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: in which Tyrion is entirely done with how Jaime keeps on insisting he and Brienne are *platonic* and so it's useless for him to put a move on her.Or, in which that word doesn't mean what everyone thinks it means.





	a very platonic relationship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TotemundTabu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotemundTabu/gifts).

> WELCOME TO JBWEEK FIC THREE, for which in order to fill (somehow) _summer solstice_/the longest day (which in this case is THE LONGEST TIME TYRION HAD TO SUFFER), I'm giving you a total crack piece generously provided by this fic's giftee who has probably heard me rant about this specific subject one time too many.
> 
> Or: it's going to be exceedingly clear in the fic, but as a former philosophy student, every time I hear people use the world _platonic_ as an argument for 'this ship should stay close friends' or 'this ship isn't romantic' or even worse, 'the people in this ship would never fuck', a part of me dies inside because that's absolutely *not* what that word originally meant and on top of that the original meaning of the word fits this ship like a T, which is why I'll leave it here. Apologies for the Plato quoting but hopefully it's explained in-text. ;) Other than that, this is really ridiculous fluff don't expect any angst here if not the one Jaime makes for himself. ;)
> 
> Other than that: for once the title isn't stolen from anything even if there's a Springsteen reference in the fic because I could, nothing belongs to me, have fun and see you tomorrow <3

> _And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. [...] ‘Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another’s company? For if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live, live a common life as if you were a single person, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two, I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?’ There is not a one of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need. _
> 
> [Plato, Symposium](http://faculty.sgc.edu/rkelley/SYMPOSIUM.pdf)

\--

“Listen, we have to do _something_, all right?”

“I don’t see,” Bronn says through the phone, “why we _do_ have to get involved when it’s not our business _and_ they make for the most entertaining show I’ve seen in my entire life.”

“_Because_,” Tyrion rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time, “_you_ don’t have to stand _all_ of the pining all of the time, because they’re honestly beyond embarrassing and because they’ll never get a move on if someone doesn’t, like, stick it into their thick heads. Also, it’s been years. I need an end to it.”

“Fair, fair,” Bronn agrees, “_but_ you owe me. Also, _you_ get your brother. No way I’m going to get into _his_ issues.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Tyrion sighs, having already taken that into account. He had supposed he _would_ have to go at it with Jaime himself. They’re having a reading evening tomorrow, anyway. How hard can it be to actually _push_ for once instead of sticking to jokes about how much he and Brienne have been pining after each other for years?

“Good,” Bronn says. “Fine. I’ll go work on _her_, I guess. She’s playing at the pub some three days from now anyway, might as well try to butter her up before she goes on stage.”

Tyrion decides that it’s an exceedingly good plan — both he and Jaime are supposed to attend, so _if_ he manages to get through Jaime’s pretty and exceedingly thick head that he _should_ put a move on her, maybe it would be a good chance. It’s not even a case of _guessing_ — fuck’s sake, Tyrion had suspected for _years_, as in, since those two became friends in high school after they both ended up in detention in circumstances neither of them ever disclosed, that they were hopelessly pining after each other _and_ actually good for each other.

For that matter, he had the full confirmation of his suspicions when a year or so ago Jaime had asked if he could bring someone over to one of their reading evenings, as in, a thing they’ve done for years since Jaime showed up with the school counselor’s dyslexia diagnosis that he went to get for himself without telling anyone about it and asked him if they could do something about it and presented him a list of things said counselor had advised him to try. Including reading out loud with other people. They never quite stopped even after Jaime got a hold on it, and in this one case he had said yes fully expecting that he’d drag Cersei along in a last attempt to make the two of them get along.

(_Admittedly, he had quit trying for a long time, especially since Cersei had made sure she didn’t want to see Brienne around the house when she started dropping by and Jaime suddenly stopped letting her have her way with anything. Still, once in a while Tyrion has the feeling that he does want to give it another try except that he never ends up acting on it._)

_Instead_, he had showed up with Brienne, which was absolutely fine by Tyrion since he’s known her since forever and there’s no contest in between her and his damned sister. And they spent the evening _reading each other Leonard Cohen poetry_, and Tyrion had absolutely been down with it, but — that just made it fucking _obvious_ that they wanted to jump each other.

Too bad that Jaime has been blathering about how the two of them are strictly platonic for years and _he doesn’t want to ruin it_ instead of actually doing himself a solid and french her like he’s been wanting to for… too long to count.

God. They met when she was fifteen and he was eighteen, he’s turning twenty-eight next August and he _still_ is pining after her, and she’s not any better, but at least she has exceedingly good excuses to actually assume _he_ wouldn’t be into her even if by now it’s beyond obvious. Still, Tyrion has been in her place for his entire life, so he _gets_ that.

Jaime, on the other side, has no excuse whatsoever that’s not being hopelessly in denial and assuming she wouldn’t want to be with _him_ like that, and fine, he can blame a lot of that on their darling sister and a lot of rest on their illustrious father, but still, at this point it’s borderline _painful_ to see those two pining and assuming they are _platonic_ when every time Tyrion hears _that_ word used in _that_ sense without pointing out that’s not what it’s supposed to mean, he feels unworthy of the master’s degree in philosophy he took on the side while getting his physics PhD.

Too bad he got that PhD with flying marks.

“Okay. Good. You work her up on the 21st, I work him up tomorrow. I swear to — whatever you want me to, if they spend another summer pining the unreleased sexual tension will kill _me_, and I like to think I don’t like to keep it unreleased.”

“As if _I_ wouldn’t know that. By the way, goes unsaid that whatever those two cunts do on the 21st, you’re repaying me in nature.”

“As if I wouldn’t have regardless.”

“Oh, I’ll think of ways you _would_ have to repay me,” Bronn says, and laughs, the arsehole. “Right. See you on the 21st. Sure as fuck I got the easy part of it.”

Yeah, Tyrion thinks as he closes the call, he definitely got the easiest part as much as Brienne would be way more difficult to convince to _put a move on Jaime_.

But at least she’s not in utter denial _and_ she only has issues Tyrion can entirely grasp, not _his brother’s thrice-fucking issues_, and fuck his sister and father for _that_, too.

Well.

He has to pick a book for tomorrow evening.

He might as well find an appropriate one.

— —

“… I think,” Jaime says, “that this kind of —”

“If the next thing you’re about to say is _beyond me_, I’m personally telling you to shut up.”

Jaime shuts his mouth, then shrugs. “Listen, it’s not _demeaning my own intelligence_ as you so nicely always put it —”

“It _is_,” Tyrion interrupts. knowing that it’s going to be useless.

“— but I have a feeling that philosophy is —”

“First thing,” Tyrion says, “_ancient Greeks_ weren’t idiots and their point was making sure people would actually understand what the hell they were on about. Second thing, you can read the _Symposium_ like a regular book even if half of the fine print gets over your head, there’s just _one_ part that might need background and it’s at the end. Third thing, maybe if you read that you’ll get that keeping on insisting that you and Brienne are _platonic_ —”

“That’s because we _are_!”

Tyrion takes a deep breath. “Incorrect. Or better, I wouldn’t even say you’re _not_ because you _kind of really are_, but again, it doesn’t mean what you think it means and since you aren’t getting _that_, I’ll take the liberty of making sure you do.”

“Tyrion —

“Shut up a moment and let me explain you a few things. So, you _do_ remember at least the basics of what you quizzed me about when I was taking philosophy in high school?”

“When it came to Plato? Sort of. I mean, that if you want to know what _he_ thought you have to look at what the other guy said most of the time and you can’t assume that the other guy actually said what _Plato_ writes him saying?”

“The other guy being Socrates, _yes_. Anyway, excellent, because this entire book is people discussing what _love_ means, and I would like for you to read _this_ specific excerpt. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know the rest.”

He slams the already opened and underlined book into Jaime’s hands.

Jaime sighs and proceeds to what he obviously thinks of as _humoring him_. “_Fine_. So, uh, ‘_Remember further what you said in your speech, or if you do not remember I will remind you. You said that the love of the beautiful set in order the empire of the gods, for that of ugly things there is no love. Did you not say something of that kind?’ ‘Yes,” said Agathon,_ wait, who the hell is this guy now?”

“A poet who’s hosting them all for dinner and has just said that love is beautiful and can’t want anything to do with _ugliness_, more or less. Go on.”

Jaime rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I totally buy that. Fine, fine._ ‘Yes, my friend, and the remark was a just one. And if this is true, Eros is the love of beauty and not of ugliness?’ He assented. _Come on, he’s totally leading him to the opposite conclusion or something, isn’t he?”

“See, you _are_ getting it. But that’s not the damned point.”

“Fine. ‘_And the admission has been already made that Eros is desire of something which a man wants and has not?’ ‘True,’ he said. ‘Then Eros wants and has not beauty?’ ‘That must be,’ he replied. ‘And would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess beauty?’ ‘Certainly not.’ ‘Then would you still say that Eros is beautiful?’ Agathon replied, ‘I fear that I did not understand what I was saying.’ ‘You made a very good speech, Agathon,’ replied Socrates. ‘But there is yet one small question which I would fain ask. Is not the Good also the Beautiful?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?’ ‘I cannot refute you,’ Socrates, said Agathon. ‘Let us assume that what you say is true_.’ Wait, what the — has he just said that love or whatever it is can’t be _beautiful_ because that’s what it searches for but at the same time beauty is, like, being good or whatever?”

“Oh, and so it was _beyond you_, huh? Anyway, _yes_. Which already means that _being in an extremely close relationship with your friends that you don’t fuck_ has zilch to do with what they’re discussing it. Christ, how do I hate the Middle Ages.”

“What do the Middle Ages have to do with all of this now?” Jaime asks defensively. Right. Because _he_ is the resident Middle Ages obsessed person.

“They were full of people who couldn’t be arsed to actually interpret this damned stuff like it was supposed to. _Now_, since that was just part of the point, and I trust you grasped it —”

“Tyrion —”

“Let’s just go to the _full_ point. Right. Read here.”

Jaime rolls his eyes, squints them and does. “At least it’s all dialogue. Fine. So, what the —_ ‘It is quite intelligible,’ she replied; ‘for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair (of course you would). Would you dare to say that any god was not?’ ‘Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And you admitted that Eros, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?’ ‘Yes, I did.’ ‘But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair?’ ‘Impossible.’ ‘Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Eros._’ I don’t get how _love_ not being a divinity has anything to do with —”

“Go ahead. Not that. Here.”

“… Right. Okay. Uhm, _the truth of the matter is this, no god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself; he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.’ ‘But who then, Diotima,’ I said, ‘are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?’ ‘A child may answer that question,’ she replied; ‘they are those who are in a mean between the two; Eros is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Eros is a love of the beautiful; and therefore Eros is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Eros. The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful_. _For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described_.’” Jaime stops, after having stumbled a few times, and then glares at him. “If your point —”

“My point is that you _really_ should go on.”

Jaime rolls his eyes and does, going through how loving beauty actually means loving something good that you want to possess and over only _some_ men knowing love and how looking for the goodness you lack means eventually searching for _knowledge_, and then Tyrion just tells him to go the part he _really_ wanted him to grasp. If anything, he’s not saying he doesn’t _get it_ anymore.

“_For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only; out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same! And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form_. Wait a moment, is he saying that —”

“For your information, the next thing that happens is that a former student of his who _really_ wanted to have more than one go at it with Socrates shows up drunk and explains how and why Socrates did _not_ actually accept his come-ons because he thought he wasn’t ready to _learn_. After going on a rant about how Socrates is ugly outside and incredibly beautiful inside and that’s part of why he _really_ wanted to have that go at him. So, every time you say _you and Brienne are such good platonic friends_ what I picture is her leading you around actually showing the true meaning of beauty and _that_ absolutely doesn’t exclude actually consummating the entire thing, which you’d know if you read Aristophanes’s speech which by the way, I’m fairly sure you would like as a story in itself, but that’s beside the point. Like. Either you put a move on her or you _stop_ saying you two are _platonic_ because it just feels like you’re making fun of me in the most fucking insufferable way.”

“Come on, I’m not _insufferable_ —”

“Jaime, you two have been pining _at least_ for half of the time you’ve known each other, don’t insult everyone’s intelligence like that, _yours_ first and foremost.”

At _that_, Jaime just shakes his head and drops the book on the sofa. “Listen, that’s — I mean, sorry that whoever read Plato in the Middle Ages decided that it was too much for the masses, but —”

“I don’t give a single fuck that it’s what people think it means. And for that matter, no one’s going to protest if you want to embrace it. By putting a move on her, for one.”

He sighs, shakes his head. “Listen, you _did_ make a compelling argument for me never using that word when it comes to this topic ever again —”

“You _could_, especially considering that you’re pretty much doing that already. I mean, you _do_ know that reading poetry to your _beautiful beloved_ was regular courtship stuff in ancient Greece?”

“… The _hell_?”

“Also bringing them small gifts and so on, and _please_, let’s not discuss how you have a wall filled with _only_ postcards that she brings you whenever she goes out of town for gigs, or how she’d always show up at home with something she’d think you’d like when you met because otherwise —”

“Your ego would get bigger than it is already,” Jaime cuts him off. “_Anyway_, never mind that the ancients obviously have a hateboner for _me_, listen, she’s not — she’s not interested that way, I think I’d know, and while I’m sure she’d be delighted to have you in the family, the last thing she needs is to be subjected to _everyone else_ or to Father trying to ruin her chances at getting a record contract if not worse, and — I’m really not good news and she can do better than me anyway. Please, you’re seeing things.”

One day, Tyrion thinks, _one day_ his sister and his father will get all the karma they deserve for making sure Jaime would end up thinking _this_ bullshit at his damned age, and that’s with all the damage control _Brienne_ did along with him, and it’s not like Tyrion didn’t have his own damned issues to unpack.

“Just for science, will you ever share _how_ the two of you ended up both in detention?”

Jaime glances at the book thrown on the sofa, then sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “Fine. You know we both were in the track team.”

“Yeah, and you both stopped being on it the day after.”

“Well, we kind of spent the time pretending to insult each other until that point. Or better, we did in the beginning for real, then it was sort of — it was obvious none of us meant it. Also I was the best and she was pretty much up there with me so… like, I respected her, I guess, and viceversa. Anyway, you remember what happened when Taena Merryweather _accidentally_ found the record only my school counselor had copies of?”

“Wait, when she basically told everyone that you went to them to get the dyslexia diagnosis because Father wouldn’t budge on listening to you and then proceeded on keeping on going without telling anyone else?”

“Yeah. I mean, I have a feeling I know how that happened and it had to do with Cersei letting her into my room at some point so she could find a copy and conveniently leave it around because I wouldn’t talk to her after she was a jerk to that other friend of hers who gave me the damned Valentine’s card.”

Right. Tyrion remembers poor Melara Hetherspoon entirely too well. She moved to a school on the other side of town after Cersei proceeded to make her life in theirs impossible just because she had some crush on Jaime, and at least _he_ had stood his ground on that. Fuck if it hadn’t been creepy, even if their father of course didn’t do anything about _that_.

“Anyway, some assholes in the team kept on making dumb jokes about how _that_ had to be why I cared only about sports and at some point a couple days before the detention thing she about told one of them out of the blue that I was putting effort in both having decent grades _and_ the track team while she couldn’t see him bothering and I just — no one kind of ever took my side in that debate. Present company excluded.”

Tyrion, who knows even too well, just nods and lets him go on.

“So, two days later I find her in tears while she’s changing and turns out that the other guys from the team had all asked her out at some point and she found out it was some kind of bet where if any of them got her to put out they’d win, and — er, I might have punched one of them in the face when he showed up three seconds later, another went at me and so _she_ went at him so I wouldn’t get a black eye and we _both_ got in detention and it was just the two of us and we ended up talking and since the two assholes knew that if the bet thing came out it would be a bad idea they said they wouldn’t do anything about it as long as _their_ parents weren’t warned, so… that’s why Father has no idea of what went down.”

Tyrion can’t — he can’t _believe_ this.

“You became friends over ending up in detention because _you defended each other to the point of physical violence_ and you still think it’s… the wrong definition of platonic?”

“And do you think I want to risk ruining it because she _might _be into me, which is absolutely something that’s up for debate?”

He shakes his head. “Listen, I’m not pushing any further because there’s a limit to everything, _but_ we’re going to that gig she’s playing at Bronn’s place the day after tomorrow, and if I were you I would give it a go. Really, at worst she says no, but you _do_ realize that after ten years she _wouldn’t_ think you’re making fun of her?”

Jaime looks like Tyrion might have just slapped him in the face for how he about winces at hearing it.

“Maybe,” he concedes, “also, do you need this?”

Tyrion rolls his eyes. “I have five copies of that book. You can keep it, as far as I’m concerned.”

Jaime stuffs the _Symposium_ in his bag and then they end up watching some dumb action movie on Netflix.

Fine.

He tried.

Tyrion hopes that he gets as far as the part about soulmates before the gig and that it gives him some ideas, but he won’t make himself sound too optimistic.

Though _maybe_ he won’t have to hear Jaime misuse the damned word anymore. Small consolations.

— —

Now: Tyrion had assumed there was no way the situation could become more ridiculous. Also, the setting should have been fairly safe — Bronn’s pub, he’s throwing some summer solstice party with a few bands playing in the yard outside so that his alcohol sales are boosted, Brienne is the last one that’s supposed to go on stage (not that _this_ will be the gig that makes her able to quit her day job and become a musician part time as she’s always wanted), they’re getting here right in between breaks so it’ll be at least half an hour before Brienne actually plays _but_ she most likely has been here for a while.

Which means that if Bronn could do his job, _maybe_ she’ll just put a move on Jaime and save them from perpetual pining.

Except that the moment they walk inside the place, they see Bronn animatedly discussing with Brienne, too far to hear what they’re actually saying though, since they’re keeping their voices low.

And Jaime’s face quite literally _falls_.

“Oh,” he says.

“What?”

“I had no idea.”

“… Of _what_ now?”

“That the two of them have a thing?”

Tyrion thinks he quite literally gapes.

Then he looks back at the scene. Fine, Bronn is talking animatedly and moving his hands around and Brienne’s listening intently and she’s half-blushing and you can see her under the bun she put her blonde hair in, and at some point she half-laughs as she shakes her head, and they’re leaning close to each other, but —

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

“Jaime, there’s no way they have a thing.”

“And how do you know that?”

_Because me and Bronn have been in one for a month but we haven’t told anyone yet_, he doesn’t groan out loud out of pure restraining, _and because they’re talking about you, for_ —

“See,” Jaime keeps on as Brienne laughs again and gives Bronn a half nod, “it’s obvious. I mean, I guess she could have said, and I didn’t think _he_ was her type, but — well. I mean, it’s fine.”

“It’s — Jaime, come on, there’s no way —”

But he’s already gone to the counter and moved next to them.

Tyrion runs after him.

Christ, he’s going to need a _lot_ of booze, after this.

“Oh, hey,” Brienne greets the both of them, but it’s obvious that when she smiles down at his brother it’s a _nicer_ smile, softer, and now she seems to be staring at him like she just realized something she hadn’t before, and then Bronn is giving him a thumbs up —

Wait, _Bronn_ managed to get her to understand it and _he_ couldn’t with Jaime? Shit. Bronn will be insufferable.

“Hey,” Jaime says, sounding like he’s valiantly trying to not break down in disappointed tears. “Uh, you know, you could have said.”

At that, her face half-falls. Damn it, damn it —

“I could have said _what_ exactly…?” Brienne asks, very slowly.

“I mean, you know that if you two are together I wouldn’t have been an ass about it, right?”

Brienne _stares_ at him.

Bronn’s mouth falls open.

Tyrion thinks he wants to die inside.

“You —” Brienne starts, “you think that _me and him_ —”

“Hey, I just walked in on the two of you about making heart eyes at each other, what am I supposed to think?”

Tyrion is about to just _say it_ and put them out of their misery even if he’d have rather seen them actually doing that themselves.

Then _Bronn_ starts laughing so hard half of the patrons turn to look at him as if he’s completely gone mad.

“What the hell…?” Jaime asks, and at that point Brienne also bursts out laughing and Tyrion can’t help noticing that it’s a _nice_ look on her, and then he looks at Jaime who is in turn staring at her like his heart has just grown five sizes.

This is so ridiculous, he can’t fucking _believe_ it.

“Lannister, you’re — I’ve just spent the last half hour trying to make sure she understood that _you_ are so utterly gone on her it’s not even fucking funny anymore and _every_ single time she was making _heart eyes_ at me, it was because she was thinking about something _you_ did that I don’t even want to know, and for that matter I’m actually taken as unlikely as it might seem to you, so _no_, we’re not having any romance going on, and after _this_ I’m just going to have a very good drink at my own expenses because I’ll never let you live this down.”

“Please,” Tyrion says, hopping on a seat and leaning on the counter, “I also want a very good drink at your expense or _his_ expense.”

Bronn snorts and hands him a whiskey on the rocks while those two _stare_ at each other some more, as if they didn’t spend half of their time together practicing _that_ look.

“Please tell me he’s not making that up,” Jaime finally blurts, and she shakes her head, a hand falling on Jaime’s shoulder — it’s hot as hell outside so she’s only wearing a grey vintage Springsteen t-shirt over her usual blue jeans, and it’s _obvious_ that her muscles are tightened, you can see it in her arms, and Jaime obviously can see it too —

“Considering he just spent half an hour doing _that_ and telling me to put him out of his misery because if you keep on saying the two of us are _platonic_ he’s going to kill Tyrion the next time he starts ranting about how that word doesn’t mean what you think it means, and that he was very convincing, I doubt that he was. Now, was he actually right or —”

“Yes,” Jaime cuts her off, not even trying to deny it. “But — you don’t really — I mean, _do you_?”

Her pretty, large blue eyes go wide. “Jaime, are you — I thought there was no way _you_ might see me like that, but I don’t think that things have been _platonic_ on my side for years. In the wrong sense of the word, of course.”

“Well,” Tyrion interrupts her, but he thinks he earned it, “I’m sure my brother would love to fill you when it comes to explaining how the two of you are platonic in the _right_ sense of the word.”

“Really,” Brienne says. “Enlighten me before we do anything else.”

Jaime glares at Tyrion, then turn turns to her again. Tyrion leans back and enjoys his drink. At least _this_ should be fun. “Uh, so, apparently the entire close friends without sex is wrong because like, love is supposed to be when you look for something you lack or you wouldn’t _want_ for it, and we all think it’s beauty because we’re superficial idiots, but beauty is actually, like, _goodness_, and anyway all of that turns into actually, er, actively looking for goodness and _actual_ beauty which since it’s a bunch of philosophy drama eventually means knowledge, so two people who love each other who if I didn’t miss a point before should also be pretty much, uh, _soulmates, _also learn from each other and that also implies fucking, and also there’s a lot of drivel about _love_ being actually, like, _not beautiful_ in itself and goodness being found behind so-called ugly things which I suppose none of the people in the track team had grasped. Not that I haven’t thought that you were hot for a long time anyway and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise, but —”

“I think I got the gist,” she grins, and then _finally_ she puts her hands on his face and kisses the living _shit_ out of him with the entirety of the patrons clapping, and Tyrion doesn’t know if he’s relieved or if he should start making fun of them right _now_.

He decides that he’s going to wait until they’re done kissing, which turns out being a good five minutes, and then Brienne realizes that maybe she should go get ready to play this whole summer solstice gig thing, but before she goes —

“Brienne?” Tyrion asks. “I would just like to add a few things to my brother’s fairly good summary.”

“Do go ahead,” she says, and her grin is showing _teeth_. She usually never smiles that wide.

This is going to be _good_.

“First, the _drivel about goodness being found behind so-called ugly things_ was a thing that was said about Socrates looking _very_ ugly but having the beauty of a god inside him if you looked past his face. Second, it was custom to court the person you wanted to teach to and bringing them small gifts or _reading poetry together_ were extremely common. Third, the drivel about soulmates is that according to a legend people were born sharing one body, then were forcefully separated by the gods and go look for the other half for the rest of their lives, and when it’s not a _merely_ carnal thing, you achieve perfect happiness _and_ you feel like you found the other part of your soul. _None_ of that means that fucking is not included in the package. You’re welcome.”

At that point, Jaime is blushing so red it _almost_ repays him of his sufferings.

Brienne, meanwhile, looks like someone who has just heard a lot of interesting ideas she needs to mull over.

“I think,” she tells Jaime, “that we really need to brush up on our ancient greeks together. _After_ I play this gig.”

Tyrion is nowhere near surprised when a hour later, when her time is up, she says she’ll finish with a nice cover that she’d like to dedicate to a friend who’s certainly not _platonic _anymore after having only played her own songs (which got a pretty good reception, truth to be told) and plays Springsteen’s _4th of July, Asbury Park_ while looking at Jaime so straight in the eyes that if anyone had doubts about who was the friend in question, they’d disappear in a moment just glancing at their stares exchange.

He drinks his third free cocktail of the evening and decides that he absolutely earned the right to roast them alive when they get married and he’ll have to give the obligatory best man’s speech.

— —

The week after, Jaime drops the bomb that he and Brienne actually _are_ together during the obligatory family Sunday lunch that none of them can avoid, _for now_.

He’s also wearing _her_ Springsteen t-shirt, and Tyrion figures that everyone else knows but won’t point out.

Their father just sends Jaime a stony look as if he wants to say that he disapproves but he had seen it coming so _whatever_. Cersei’s fork falls on the table. “And what happened to your so-great _platonic_ friendship, then?” She asks, her voice dripping vitriol even if she’s trying to hide it, but given that her _fiancé_ is sitting beside her, Tyrion supposes she can’t disapprove too openly lest Robert starts wondering why the hell she’d care that much about whether Jaime has a girlfriend or not.

Jaime smirks, reaching for a piece of bread. “Oh, we’re still very much platonic, just in the _real_ sense of the word.”

“The _real_ sense of the word?” Aunt Genna asks, her eyes immediately finding Tyrion’s. He clears his throat.

“I’m pretty sure it means they both indulged in some cultural activities or that she played him some songs or gifted him that shirt just before they engaged in —”

“I think that’s enough,” their father interrupts, looking like he just swallowed a lemon. Same as Cersei.

Jaime looks like he’s trying to not laugh out loud as he whispers to Tyrion that he likes the original meaning of the word _platonic_ way better than the new one.

“Thanks for putting me out of my misery then,” Tyrion deadpans, and proceeds to eat his salad.

All in all, he decides, it could have gone way worse.

But he’s still roasting them alive at the wedding. No chances he won’t.

End.


End file.
